I am finding that more and more conversations in social work are ethical conversations about how we do good work in a difficult context. I hear a great deal about struggle. And I find myself wondering how we can aspire when aspiration may not seem realistic.

Much of the work I do requires aspiration. It is about how we empower people, develop excellent practice, build support for social workers, and argue passionately and knowledgably for resources. Sometimes the choice seems to be to either set an aspiration that can never be achieved, or settle for what is pragmatic.

As our podcast, Helpful Social Work, comes up to a year old, Jo Fox and I look back on the last twelve months in social work.

We try and avoid thinking just about what’s different (change), and look for where things have got better (progress). We talk about practice, research, education and social work policy. There are positives, despite the difficult context, but a lot still to do.

In the first part of our tenth podcast we start to take a look at the organisations that social workers operate in. We consider how organisations function in uncertainty and the impact that this has on practice.

In the second part of our ninth podcast we unpick the idea that we can keep doing more with less, and look at how we can work sustainably and helpfully with fewer resources. We consider social workers’ wellbeing and workload, accountability and prioritising, and how we can lobby for good social care.

The first part of our eighth podcast is on the topic of emotional containment and support for social workers. We take a look at the theory and evidence around how to help social workers to understand, process and learn from the emotional aspect of their work.